


Of Moles And Hammers

by Ravenclaw_Peredhel



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Canonical Character Death, Do not call Lómiel Maeglin or she will punch you, F/M, Fall of Gondolin, Female Maeglin, Gen, Glorfindel and femMaeglin are little shits, Halls of Mandos, They're also BFFs fight me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 06:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28467003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenclaw_Peredhel/pseuds/Ravenclaw_Peredhel
Summary: Princess Maeglin Lomiel of the House of the Mole betrayed her city and her king.Facing the consequences of her actions will never be easy. Facing them with her bright, brave mother beside her is a little easier.But Aredhel cannot always be there to protect her daughter, and sometimes, that is just what is needed.
Relationships: Aredhel & Maeglin | Lómion, Idril Celebrindal & Maeglin | Lómion, Maeglin | Lómion & Tuor, Maeglin | Lómion & Turgon of Gondolin, Maeglin | Lómion/Rog
Comments: 10
Kudos: 12





	Of Moles And Hammers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rogercat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rogercat/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Golden and the Black](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5289005) by [Alystraea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alystraea/pseuds/Alystraea). 
  * Inspired by [Painful Meetings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4895794) by [Rogercat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rogercat/pseuds/Rogercat). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning before you start reading.  
> I am presenting Maeglin as a little bit more cheerful and open, purely because from my own observations of myself and my brother, females tend to be more sociable. This is purely my own point of view as a teenage girl, and in no way is this point of view necessary to read my story. Additionally, I feel that a dark-haired, white-skinned daughter of Aredhel would be better recieved than a son, especially after her tragic death. Ya know, just saying. Also, Eöl would have had less interest in a female child, so she will have absorbed a lot less of his attitudes and views. She doesn't use her father name because she hated her father. He was a lot crueller to her than he was to his son, just saying.

Heavy footsteps sound outside her cell door, and Lómiel flinches, closing her eyes so that she can not see what the lieutenant of Morgoth has brought to torment her with this time. "Lady Maeglin. Are you ready to tell me where your little town is yet?" No, no she cannot. Not when Cousin Idril's little son is so small and little. He had nearly seven years when she left. She has missed his birthday. A sigh. "So intractable. I must admit, my dear lady, that I am impressed by your willpower. But my master grows impatient, and I no longer have the time for more...elegant methods."

"No...please." She can barely speak. Partially because of the screaming she has been doing for the last few months, but also because her throat was cut just so. Her clear voice is gone, replaced by a husky broken rasp. Everything that is herself is gone, swallowed by the aches that swell ever greater all over her body with each visit from Sauron.

"Ah, but you have no choice my dear." And then...pain. Not physical, but mental, the excruciating agony of having the inner sanctum of ones being violated totally and cruelly. Against her will, images of Gondolin begin to flick through the forefront of her brain. Of the way there. Before she knows it she is sagging in her chains and the lieutenant is patting her cheek with a satisfied smirk. "Thank you my dear. And now, as I promised, I will let you go. I will see you soon, little traitor."

**************

"Uncle Turgon? Tuor? Idril? Laurë? Anyone? Please, it's me, Lómiel." Is this the right ravine? It is too dark to tell, and she is too tired, too sore, and too guilty to care. Maybe, it will be better if she just lies down in the beautiful white snow. It will be quiet, and comfortable. The snow will oothe her poor aching head, and stem the steady trickle of blood from her ears and her nose, brought about by the intense pressure of a Maiar forcing his way inside her head.

She stumbles drunkenly into the cleft and sits down hard. "Lady Lómiel? Lady Lómiel!" That voice...does she know that voice? An image of bright flameless lanterns, and a proud carved face floats across her vision. Elemmíre? She isn't sure. Perhaps she knows him. But she is so tired, and her poor head is ringing and throbbing, and she just wants to sleep.

**************

It is too bright. Too bright. Her head hurts. Ai, what has happened? Perhaps she drank too much with Laurë again? Lómiel groaned and buried her aching face in her soft pillow. 

"Lómiel. Little cousin." Idril! Maybe she knows why she feels so bad. Lómiel springs up instantly, regretting it just as quickly as her head gives a particularly nasty throb. 

She hisses, raising a hand to it. "Ai. Idril. What is wrong with my fucking head? It feels like that time Laurë drunk me under the table after the Nirnaeth." Now that had been a wild party - the wine had flowed in torrents as everyone tried to drown out the pain and grief of the disastrous battle. She and Laurë had gotten drunk enough to have a drinking contest. Needless to say, she had lost. 

"Lómiel...do you not remember anything?"

"What? Oh, did I dance on the table again? Please tell me Laurë was too drunk to remember. Oh shit! Idril, what's the time? I'm supposed to go to the mines today! Idril? Idril, what's wrong?"

"Lómiel...you've been missing for more than four months. It's Midwinter." Oh. She halted, and then suddenly her head gave an extra vicious throb and memories came pouring into her battered mind. Angband...Sauron...Gondolin...

"Idril! Please, get Uncle Turgon. Please, I've done something terrible." 

"I'm here little Mole. What is it? Did you collapse a mine again?" Normally her uncle's deep voice was soothing, but the guilt bubbling sickeningly through her veins like acid made her unable to relax as he drew her into a warm embrace. 

"No." She pulled away. Uncle Turgon was as a father to her. And far better than Eöl, who had only ever paid attention to her to gripe about how she had not been a son. But she felt so terribly guilty, and could not bear to feel her uncle's arms grow stiff around her as he realised what she had done, to feel as her uncle's love for her was drained by her deeds. "I...I wasn't in the hills." And then it all poured out, the whole sorry tale, accompanied hy many tears and throbs of her aching head. "And then I came back here, and I shouldn't have, but I had nowhere else to go, and I probably led them right to you, and I am so sorry, but I don't know what to do." Idril and Turgon sat frozen, staring at her in shock. She cringed back, hiding her face in her hands. She did not want to see how they would look at her when realisation sank in. 

Two pairs of warm, loving arms encircled the weeping girl. "Lómiel." She only wept harder.

"It is my fault. I am going to kill everyone. It's my fault. I'm cursed, it's followed me." Her father's dying words, the only words he ever truly spoke _to_ rather than _at_ her, a curse. What if that is why this is happening? Is she as cursed as the blood-drenched sons of Fëanor?

"No, no it isn't. You were strong Lómiel, so strong. You lasted for months, and you did not give up the information willingly, even after all that time. I am so proud of you my niece, so proud of your strength." Idril added her assent to her father's, and Lómiel, even though a part of her screamed that how could they be so forgiving because she has doomed them all can't they see, basks in the love of her family, as small and broken as it is. 

****************

"Hurry Lómiel!" Idril led her cousin to the little house where Eärendil had been taken by Salgant when they realised that 'attack soon' had meant three months later as opposed to a reasonable stretch of time like three years or three decades. Lómiel followed her shining golden cousin unwillingly, head bowed as she wept. Everywhere she looked, there was death, and it was all her fault. 

"Ammë! Aunty Lomi! Dad! Haru!" There he was, in the clutches of a great filthy orc. Before Lómiel realised what was happening, Idril had dispatched the scum with a single deadly swing of her sword, and was holding her little son in her arms, whispering assurances and apologies and endearments to him under her breath. Lómiel stood over them, her sword out as her jet-black eyes (the only thing she had inherited from her accursed sire) scanned their surroundings. 

There! Salgant lay half out of the window of Idril and Tuor's house. She shuddered and looked away as quickly as possible. Poor elf. He had been kind to her, and to almost everyone. No one deserved a fate like that, least of all the jolly Lord of the House of the Harp. Her sharp eyes caught sight of a large band of orcs. "Idril. We need to go...now." 

*****************

"Balrog!" The cry reverberates from the back of the column. 

Lómiel looks back at the Balrog wreaking fiery havoc on the end of the weary and wounded procession. A hand grabs her upper arm as she turns, the grip almost painfully tight with it's urgency. "Don't you dare." Idril's voice is hoarse and low with smoke and her eyes are anguished. "Don't you dare, Lómiel. You can't, do you hear me?" But Laurë is moving and Idril's grasp is loosening from shock, and Lómiel has pulled her arm loose and her sword is in her hand and she and her heart-brother are charging at the beast and it is so hot and for a moment she is back in Angband and she can hear that poisonous voice telling her that the pain will end if she will just tell him where Gondolin is hidden and she nearly screams. But Laurë's golden hair flashes across her vision and the memory breaks and she chuckles amid her tears because Laurë never ties up his hair. 

Then the Balrog is stooping down at them, and she cuts it's whip in two with one slash of her sword, still as sharp as it was when the battle began, and Laurë is beside her and he is laughing and it annoys her a little that he never takes _anything_ seriously but then she remembers how terrible it is when he does take things seriously and then she has to duck because the Balrog threw an actual boulder at her and she can hear it smash into the wall and she prays to Eru that it didn't hit anyone. And then she cannot think because it is slash and duck and parry and there is Laurë and she tackles him so that the red hot sword misses him and then it is up again and duck and drive it back and on and on and then...

Suddenly they are right up against the edge and they are edging the Balrog back and her side is aching from where she was thrown into the wall by a troll earlier and they are winning and it is falling backwards and...Laurë's hair is caught in it's fist and he is falling backwards and suddenly he isn't laughing anymore. Lómiel doesn't even hear her scream. What she hears is Idril's cry of 'no Lómiel!' and little Eärendil calling for her and the jingle of Tuor's armour as he starts to run for her and a hundred other sounds as she leaps and grabs Laurë's hand and pulls him backwards. But the Balrog is holding on by his hair, and it is seperating from his scalp, so she lets go with one hand to reach for a dagger in her boot. Lifting her boot means that her balance is compromised, but she doesn't realise this until her remaining foot scrapes over the edge of the cliff. For a moment she hangs there vertical and Laurë's eyes are wide and then...

The cliff face flashes before them and she is laughing because of course she will die falling off a cliff because of course even after all of this the spiteful dying wish of a bitter Dark elf is enough to affect her death. And Laurë is struggling and she knows that he is trying to cushion her fall so that she can live because she knows her best friend like she knows herself but there is no way that she can survive this fall and also she realises that the Balrog is also alive and also falling and then there is a glowing sword stuck right up through her stomach. Lómiel has enough time to decide that yes being impaled is quite possibly one of the worst experiences imaginable when there is a nasty **thud**! And everything is quite suddenly and definitely very very dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read and review 😁


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